First Impressions Aren't Everything

So we decided to spend the morning in Greenville before meeting Gramps' 2pm airplane. First we stopped at the Children's Garden at Linky Stone Park. Here's what the Greenville website says:

"The Children's Garden is a multi-themed garden designed to enrich children's intelligence, creativity and well-being through exploration and discovery. The garden is located at Linky Stone Park, a 1.7-acre greenspace along the Reedy River, between downtown Greenville and the revitalized West End."

What it really is is just an area under an overpass, right after you've just gone through an iffy part of town (albeit along "Shoeless Joe Jackson Memorial" road) right before you get to downtown Greenville, that would have freaked us out enough to keep driving on by, except we were there on a Saturday and it's right next to a very popular biking/running trail (Swamp Rabbit Trail) and this is where a lot of people park. So there were enough cars and normal looking people around that the urge to keep driving past dissipated!

Someone did A LOT of work to fit as much as they did into such a tiny area. This ended up being MUCH more than met the eye at first glance!

Brennan in front of Hansel and Gretel's Gingerbread House in the 'Fairy Tale Forest'

Then there was a 'Storybook Garden'

The entrance to "The Secret Garden", one of Grammy's favorite books

Evan in 'The Secret Garden'

The boys checking out 'Peter Rabbit' and his story painted on the fence

Very cute turtle in the 'Sculpture Garden'

Evan making music in the 'Science Garden'

Brennan checking out his letter in the 'ABC Garden'

We had to go back to the 'Fairy Tale Forest' to check out the 3 bears that had been occupied when we first arrived.

There was also a '5 senses garden', 'rainbow garden', 'wildlife walk' and more! It was SUPER CUTE!

Greenville far exceeded my expectations, and there are still things there that we didn't get to go check out that I'd like to do next time. A "Mice on Main Street" hunt with clues online to find these 9 little mice sculptures along the street, and Main Street itself looked like it had really interesting shops and a festival was going on with the street blocked off when we went past on another weekend. They also have a minor league baseball team with a park that is supposed to be a replica of Fenway Park, so I'm sure that would be fun to do sometime also!

At the bottom of this link (http://www.greenvillesc.gov/ParksRec/ChildrensGarden.aspx) is a link for the 'map' of the garden, which I'm sure must be full of color in the spring time.